Sunflower Read Free Page A

to wake at any moment.
    She glanced up quickly at Opa, who was beginning to ask questions, which she chose to ignore for the time being. Kase was staring down at the man who had dark hair so like his own. It was not often that the child saw anyone with such black hair, even when they went to the village.
    Looking at her small son, with his straight, blue-black hair cut neatly into bangs across his forehead and bowl-shaped around his head, she had a sudden intuition as to the man’s illness and began to pull the stranger’s shirttail out of his trousers. Quickly, she unfastened the brass buttons and opened his double-breasted shirt. She noted with an expert’s eye that it was tailored much like the shirts worn by the United States Army’s soldiers. She wondered briefly at this choice of style, for although the shirt was similar to the uniforms, it was black instead of navy and devoid of any bar or buttons marked with the army’s insignia.
    Just as she suspected, Analisa saw that the man’s stomach was aflame with a raised, mottled rash. She lifted his head and arms and wrestled with the shirt in order to pull it off of him. The insides of his arms were red as well. Analisa tried to ignore the otherwise cinnamon bronze tint of his upper body. She knew without looking that the rest of him would be of the same hue.
    “What is wrong with the man, Analisa? Do you know?” Opa asked the question for the fourth time while Kase stood silent, hanging on to his great-grandfather’s pantleg.
    “Ja. I’m almost certain he has the measles, same as Kase had when he was so sick.”
    “A grown man fainting from the measles? You think so?”
    “Please help me lift him, Opa,” she spoke quickly, standing and moving the lamp to the table in the center of the room. “We’ll put him on my bed.” Analisa crossed the room and folded back the quilt arid comforter, smoothing the clean sheet with her hand before she returned to her grandfather’s side.
    “Kase, put his hat on the chair and get back out of the way. There’s no need to worry now, for you have already had the measles. You will not be sick again.” With a quick, reassuring touch, she smoothed her son’s silky hair and smiled into his china-blue eyes, a mirror image of her own and always startling in his brown face.
    “What about his gun?” the boy asked.
    Analisa carried the gun belt to the trunk beside her bed. She opened the lid of the chest and dropped the gun and holster inside, where they rested on her neatly folded clothes. She then returned to where Opa and Kase stood near the stranger.
    “Come, Opa, take his feet,” she instructed as she again lifted the man’s shoulders to spare her grandfather the full weight. They carried the stranger a few feet before lowering him to the dirt floor again. Breathing heavily, Opa rested while Analisa waited, and in a few moments the pair lifted their burden once more. Walking with quick, short steps, they reached her bed and studied its height.
    “I’ll swing his shoulders up and you shove him onto the bed.” Panting with exertion, Analisa swung the man’s solid weight onto the bed. As momentum sent her sprawling across his broad chest, she struggled to pull her arms from beneath him while her head rested near his shoulder. Something froze inside her at the forced contact with the man’s smooth, warm skin. Quickly, she twisted away from him and pulled her arms free. Her grandfather shoved the man’s feet and legs up a second later, and Analisa, freed from the weight of the stranger’s upper body, shoved his hips up and over the edge of the bed.
    For a moment Analisa and her grandfather stood panting, trying to catch their breath while they watched the unconscious man. He did not stir.
    “Thank you, Opa. Somehow we did it!” She smiled for the first time that evening, a glowing smile of accomplishment that lit her eyes and showed her even white teeth. A blush of color like that of a smooth, ripe peach warmed her